Just Like Starting Over
by purplecloak9
Summary: One-Shot. Harry and Ginny's first discussion after the Final Battle. Harry's finally been able to let go of the bitterness, but now Ginny has her own ghosts to contend with.


"All right?" he asked, sitting down beside her on the garden wall.

She doesn't look up from the sunset. Her brow is furrowed, concentrating on the horizon as though the sky were something that required her undivided attention. Harry thought it was very beautiful, the odd mixture of pink and orange.

"I've been better."

Her voice is so stiff that for a second he wonders if he hasn't just intruded upon the wrong person's solitude. The Ginny he left behind was never this uncomfortable to be around. The air _hummed_ when he was around _his_ Ginny. This one, sitting on the four foot brick wall with her ankles crossed, did not make the Earth spin.

He balanced both pints of mead on his knee, risking a glance at her. She was still studiously avoiding looking at him – in fact, if she hadn't just spoken he would have thought she was unaware of his presence. She said she'd been better.

Well, he knew about wounds.

"George told me to bring you a drink. The party is getting a little rowdy."

She was the only person in her family who was sitting outside the festivities. Truth be told, Harry wasn't exactly keen on celebration himself; a week ago he defeated the greatest Dark wizard of all time, and this afternoon had been an honorary brother's funeral. But George, whose grief was a surprising mix of sadness and jubilance, had insisted upon a great party to celebrate Harry's triumph, the end of the war, and the life and pranks of Fred Weasley.

"I'm not exactly in the mood for a drink, or a party." _Or you_, she said, without opening her mouth.

"Ginny…"

She held up her hand. "Please, don't."

"Don't what?" he asked, frustrated. "Don't ask why you're shutting me and everyone who cares about you out? Don't tell you you're acting more like _me_ then I am? Damn it Ginny, we're here!"

Her head snapped up, eyes meeting his for the first time in six days. "How dare you, Harry Potter, talk to me about shutting people out? Speaking of, things are getting a little emotionally difficult; it's time for you to crawl into your hole again!"

"The war is over, Ginny. We can start out lives again. I don't want to be in a hole when I know everyone's got so much going for them. Fred wouldn't want us to stop the laughing and the pranks. He would want everyone together, everyone happy, preferably with Percy as a Canary." He ran his fingers through his already mussed hair; he must have been ruffling it already but hadn't noticed.

"What is there to go back to? Every time I think of picking up the pieces and putting everything back together, I know I don't have the strength." Her anger deflated and she turned back to the rapidly darkening sky.

Hesitantly, he lifted his hand to her cheek. It felt exactly the same as the last time he'd touched it; soft and beautiful. She was always so lovely, his Ginny. "You can do anything you want, Ginny. You're the strongest person I know."

"What the hell do you see when you look at me, Harry? All I seem to do are disappoint people with weakness they never thought I held. You'd think eventually I'd lose this horrible reputation as a hard-ass."

"You hate it when people think otherwise," he said, removing his hand and following her gaze to the now dark blue sky. "You never let anyone see anything but a strong, independent woman. How can someone see what you won't let them?"

"I'm tired of trying to convince people otherwise. But that excuse will work for anyone, even my parents. Anyone can say then don't know me because I won't let them. Anyone but you. You _could_ know me; you could know everything about me, even what I try to hide because you should know by now I can't resist anything you ask of me. That's how pathetically weak I am.

"You could ask me anything about myself, even, or perhaps especially the ugly parts and I would tell you without hesitation. But you see what everyone else sees because you've never looked past it all. All those weeks kissing and touching on the grounds by the lake and you never really knew me."

Her words dried up as soon as they left her lips and Harry suddenly felt very cold inside. He took an unattractive gulp of his mead, forgetting for a moment the relief that had dominated his spirits the last few days. Now, his whole body felt tense and coiled. Only Ginny Weasley could make him feel so good with a smile and so awful when those lips curled back and revealed her smoldering resentment.

"I don't want us to be like this," he said once he had finally located his voice. "I don't want Voldemort to have gone but come back every time we fight."

"He wanted that," she agreed.

"What do _you_ want," he pressed. "I already know what I want. Now it's time for you to make your decision."

She looked down at her knees then. "Tell me what you want first," she said in a small voice.

"I want to go back to Hogwarts and go to classes and take my N.E.W.T.s. I want to laugh and joke with Ron and Hermione and Neville and Luna. I want Hogsmeade weekends and I want to watch Hermione scold Ron when his ears get pink at a glance from Madame Rosmerta. I want to graduate and remember those who weren't able to do it. But mostly, I don't care what happens. I just want you there with me, happy and okay."

"You still want that? Even after all this?"

He scooted closer to her, putting a tentative arm around her shoulders. She didn't relax against him like she might have a year ago, but it was nice all the same to be enfolded in her scent once again.

"It's all I've ever wanted," he said into her hair. "That's the only reason I did it, you know that right? I didn't want to leave you for a minute, but it was the only thing I _could_ do."

"It didn't feel like that at the time. At the time it felt like I wanted to go with you, like I would go _anywhere_ with you, and you put me in a box like I had no feelings. And now a stupid pathetic part of me wants to punish you for making me feel so lost. I don't want to give anyone that power…last time I did…"

His body went cold. Almost mechanically, he took her chin in his hand turned her so that he could look into her eyes. "I am not Tom Riddle. I _killed_ Tom Riddle. You can trust me with anything."

"I couldn't trust you to stay with me," she whispered hollowly.

He wanted desperately to hold her more securely against him, but he refrained for fear that going too fast would break their already fragile relationship. "Voldemort was something I had to take care of before I could begin my life. It wasn't anything I wanted to do, just that I knew if I didn't do it, no one else would. And I couldn't be with you completely until I knew it was safe, that we were safe."

"I was afraid," she admitted.

"What were you afraid of?"

She leaned into him this time, putting an arm around his waist. "I was afraid that I was going to be this way indefinitely, that I was going to be stuck in limbo, being shut out of all the action, all the news, all the fighting. I don't want to live that way, Harry – I can't. I'm not strong enough to live while you cut me out."

"Whatever you want to know I'll tell you. I don't want to hurt you anymore. I want us…"

She sighed. "Are you ever going to get over being uncomfortable around girls?"

Recognizing the challenge, he plowed ahead. "I want for us to be together."

"I want that too."

"Really?" he asked, looking at her with a guarded expression.

"Would I have been so upset if I didn't love you so much?"

He stood up, taking the final sip from his glass, banishing it with a wave of his wand. Stowing the wand away in his pocket, he offered her his hand, which she, thankfully, accepted. "Let's go back to the party," he said with an uncharacteristically confident smile. "I think we should start this evening over."

She looked back at the sky and took a deep breath, letting out slowly as she turned back to him, slipping her hand into his. "Alright," she consented.

"Alright."


End file.
